Now Mr. Green has offered to contribute from £30 to £40 yearly, for three or four years; my young friend and pupil, the son of one of my dearest old friends, £50; and I think that from £10 to £20 I could rely upon from another. The sum required would be about £200, to be repaid, of course, should the disposal or sale, and as far as the disposal and sale, of my writings produce the means. I have thus placed before you at large, wanderingly, as well as diffusely, the statement which I am inclined to send in a compressed form to a few of those of whose kind dispositions towards me I have received assurances,--and to their interest and influence I must leave it--anxious, however, before I do this, to learn from you your very, very inmost feeling and judgment as to the previous questions. Am I entitled, have I earned _a right_ to do this? Can I do it without moral degradation? and, lastly, can it be done without loss of character in the eyes of my acquaintance, and of my friends' acquaintance, who may have been informed of the circumstances? That, if attempted at all, it will be attempted in such a way, and that such persons only will be spoken to, as will not expose me to indelicate rebuffs to be afterwards matter of gossip, I know those, to whom I shall entrust the statement, too well to be much alarmed about. Pray let me either see or hear from you as soon as possible; for, indeed and indeed, it is no inconsiderable accession to the pleasure I anticipate from disembarrassment, that _you_ would have to contemplate in a more gracious form, and in a more ebullient play of the inward fountain, the mind and manners of, My dear friend, Your obliged and very affectionate friend, S. T. COLERIDGE. T. Allsop, Esq.[117] Coleridge's animadversions on Scott's work are not justifiable. Although Sir Walter's poetry is not to be compared for literary technique to that of Coleridge, it has a merit not unlike some parts of Coleridge's own. Sir Walter may be designated the Poet of Romantic Association; much of his poetry is founded on the associations of localities celebrated in history. The _Second Part of Christabel_ and the _Knight's Tomb_ are clearly of this genre of poetry. A touch of jealousy of the success of Scott seems to enter into Coleridge's estimate of his brother poet. His criticism of the novels is of less importance; for Coleridge was always hostile to the novel as enticing men away from serious study and reading.] FOOTNOTES: [107] [Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ch. xix, also Memoir of Hartley Coleridge, xxxv, prefixed to Hartley Coleridge's _Poems_, 1851.] [108] [The date of this or Letter 179, given by Allsop, must be wrong, perhaps for 8th read 18th April.] [109] [An echo of Schiller's